The Opportunity
A customer experience platform provider understood the importance of having reliable, well-integrated technology at the core of its own business.
As the company grew, the organization recognized an opportunity to unify its technology environment. With multiple entities now operating under one roof, standardizing on a single platform for email, collaboration, and document management would give every employee a consistent experience, strengthen security and access controls, and position the organization to move faster as it continued to grow.
The strategic case for moving to Microsoft 365 was clear. The company wanted a single, unified platform for email, collaboration, and document management that would give every employee a consistent experience and give leadership greater visibility and control. Consolidating onto Microsoft 365 would also support the company's broader goals around growth and acquisition, as well as enabling the adoption of Microsoft-based AI tools and a new phone system that required a modern identity foundation. Microsoft also offered a more cost-effective path forward compared to the organization's existing agreements.
The company engaged Emergent Software to manage the full migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365, including tenant setup, data migration, identity consolidation, and change management. The engagement required careful coordination across multiple domains, a diverse device landscape, and a workforce that would be adopting new tools and workflows for the first time.
The Solution
Emergent Software structured the engagement around a phased timeline that gave the company clear milestones and a controlled path through each stage of the migration. The first phase focused on discovery and inventory: identifying all users, domains, licenses, and third-party integrations that depended on Google authentication. This included mapping out every application using Google-based single sign-on (SSO) so that nothing would break silently when the cutover occurred. Licensing requirements were assessed and aligned to role-based access needs across the organization.
A core component of the solution was establishing Microsoft Entra ID as the foundation for identity and access management, replacing the Google-based authentication model the company had relied on. Emergent guided the organization through setting up SSO through Microsoft, configuring role-based permissions, and onboarding employees to Microsoft Authenticator. Help guides and communications were developed to support staff through the transition, making the new authentication experience approachable for employees encountering it for the first time.
Data migration encompassed email, calendar, and file content across all of the company's domains, with SharePoint standing up as the new home for internal document management. Emergent used migration tooling and custom scripting to move content and preserve folder structures where possible, and worked with the company to develop a retention strategy that kept the Google environment accessible during the transition period so that anything not migrated initially could still be recovered. Where content did not translate cleanly between platforms, such as Google Slides presentations that did not convert well to PowerPoint or Word, Emergent worked with the the company team to develop a practical approach to handling those assets.
Microsoft Teams was deployed as the unified collaboration platform, replacing a fragmented mix of Slack, Skype, Google Chat, and email-based communication. Emergent also helped the company establish document security policies that replaced the informal credential-sharing practices the organization had used previously, ensuring that sensitive business artifacts were protected through proper access controls rather than shared passwords.
Change management was treated as a core deliverable throughout the engagement. Emergent held twice-weekly working sessions with the client's leadership and project team, walking through completed work, addressing emerging questions, and helping the organization prepare its staff for each phase of the rollout. A detailed communications calendar was developed so that employees received timely, clear guidance before each change took effect. Dedicated support channels were established for cutover day so that any issues could be resolved quickly without disrupting business operations. The goal throughout was to ensure that no employee lost access to the tools they needed to do their work.
The Impact
The company completed the migration to Microsoft 365 with its workforce fully unified on a single tenant, operating from a common set of tools and a consistent identity foundation. Employees who had previously worked across separate domains and disconnected platforms now share one email environment, one collaboration space in Microsoft Teams, and one document management system in SharePoint.
Document security improved substantially as a result of the engagement. Role-based permissions and SSO through Microsoft Entra ID became the standard, giving the organization meaningful control over who can access what and reducing risk. The migration also laid the identity foundation The company needed to move forward with other strategic initiatives, including the adoption of Microsoft-based AI tools and a new phone system, both of which required a modern, unified authentication environment to function properly.
The operational benefits of consolidating onto a single platform extended beyond security. With all employees in Teams, communication across the organization became more direct and manageable. Document collaboration transformed into a governed, searchable SharePoint environment.
Feedback from the the company team highlighted the quality of Emergent's change management support as a standout element of the engagement. The communications framework, cutover planning, and hands-on guidance through the rollout gave the company's employees a supported transition experience and allowed the organization to absorb a significant platform change without meaningful disruption to day-to-day work. The relationship between the company and Emergent has continued well beyond the initial migration, with subsequent work including Microsoft Intune deployment and ongoing exploration of Microsoft Copilot licensing, reflecting the trust built through a complex and carefully executed engagement.
